


By A Thread

by navree



Category: Arrested Development
Genre: Gen, me? writing about Arrested Development even tho I have diane/dale shit to write?, more likely than you think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-12 05:14:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11730243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navree/pseuds/navree
Summary: The Bluths, for all their insane spontaneity, often stay true form on most cases.America's most dysfunctional family gives a typical reaction to the death of one of their own, technically, except for the only one who's allowed by society to have a full blown meltdown about the situation.





	By A Thread

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to make this funny even though it gets a BIT sad, which we owe entirely to Jason Bateman's acting range. Other than that, it's Bluth Family craziness as usual, because the show wouldn't be the same without all that nonsense.  
> as always, comments (either positive or constructive) are always welcome and much appreciated!

Everyone reacts exactly the way it was expected they would when Tracey dies. The Bluths, for all their insane spontaneity, often stay true form on most cases. Everyone reacts the expected way, except for Michael. He knows this, and he truly doesn't care. He also knows that the main expectation of nearly everyone is that he will cry, the way most of the family does, or perform some other outward display of grief the way all of the family does. George Michael cries, because she was his mother and he loved her dearly, but he cries silently, all quivering lips and shaking shoulders. Michael notices, of course, because Michael is a father and he loves his son dearly. He pulls George Michael into a hug, reassurances falling from his lips until George Michael tells him he has trouble breathing and would like to be released.

Gob cries, because Gob is overdramatic and can't find anything else to express his emotions. And also because Gob is just a little bit of an asshole and likes whenever grand gestures make him the center of attention. So he cries, but unlike George Michael he is loud and obnoxious about it, sobbing and carrying on in a manner Michael finds slightly inappropriate. But it does come from a genuine place of sadness, sadness for both Michael's fate as a widower and Tracey's fate as, well, a dead woman. Lindsay immediately goes to hug him, despite the fact that Michael has never been one for hugs, and then proceeds to as him "How are you?" It seems a bit of an insensitive question at first, because his wife is dead and his son no longer has a mother and Michael still has so many things to think about, so how exactly does she expect him to be? But, just like Gob's theatrics, Lindsay's occasional nonsensical probes come from a genuine place of sincerity. So Michael shrugs, and lets Lindsay rub her hands along his arms like she's trying to warm him up, until it gets awkward. Butster does something between a sob and an awkward laugh. It sounds more like a cough. So, essentially, it looks to Michael as though Buster is having some sort of coughing fit in reaction to the news of his sister in law's passing. In reality, Buster is just thoroughly unequipped to deal with death, and so does the best he can. Michael ends up rubbing his back while Buster awkwardly recites a Shakespeare poem, before his breathing shortens and Lucille whisks him away while muttering "He can't stand fluorescent lighting" under her breath.

His father gives him vodka. That's about it. He comes, he claps Michael on the back, mumbles something that sounds vaguely like condolences (the word, not anything more meaningful that could be classified as a condolence), and then hands him a bottle of vodka. Michael grips it by the neck, things his lips, nods, and then ushers George Sr. away before he says something obscene in front of George Michael. His mother doesn't cry, and doesn't really do much of anything in the way of facial expressions. It's her way, after all, to rarely show emotion unless she is absolutely blackout drunk, or if Buster was injured in any way shape or form. But she does thread her fingers through Michael's hair (and briefly gets one of her rings caught rather painfully in there for a moment) as a gesture of comfort. "I'm sorry," she says. "This wasn't supposed to happen." Michael knows it wasn't supposed to happen, but he takes what he can currently get from his mother in the way of sympathy, and pats her hand in thanks. Oscar is actually surprisingly appropriate when Michael calls him, even if he sounds baked, offerings his sincerest apologies. He then segues into a beautiful rant about how, despite life is futile, Tracey made an impact on the world around her, changed the lives of the people who loved her, and brightened the day of those who knew her. It's only when Oscar starts talking about how humorous Tracy was on Saturday Night Live, and how her stand up comedy revolutionized the way people perceived the African American community, that Michael had to cut his uncle off and remind him that he had not, in fact, married Tracy Morgan, as Oscar was apparently believing, nor was he insinuating in any way that Tracy Morgan was dead. Oscar is silent for a moment, before muttering a "That's unfortunate," (which could either be about Michael not knowing/being married to Tracy Morgan, or that Michael's wife, also named Tracey, has just died) and then promptly hangs up.

Tobias, true to form, offers him not one, not two, but five stress balls. "When in times of crisis," he begins sagely, nearly tripping over his own shoes, which look too big for him anyway, "I find that playing with some nice hard balls helps me relax and focus myself." He looks pleased with himself as he nods, holding the stress balls in his outstretched hand, completely oblivious to the implications of what he just said. Michael is in no mood to fondle some balls, and resists the urge to smack them out of Tobias's hand, instead giving him a shoulder pat and thanking the good doctor for his touching concern in regards to Michael's mental wellbeing. Maeby doesn't say anything, or do much of anything, and instead devotes her time to staring at Tracey's body. Not for any morbid reason, but simply because she's young, it's her first time seeing a dead body, and youthful curiosity has made her fascinated with this recent family tragedy. Michael pats her head as she continues to look, before Tobias promptly diagnoses Maeby with postpartum depression, and attempts to use one of the IV tubes to give Maeby the appropriate medication (despite the fact that he had misdiagnosed her, she had no need for medication, and the tube was not currently in use). This then led to Lindsay yelling at him, while Maeby looked thoroughly unconcerned at her parents' squabbles. Michael takes the time to smooth back Tracey's hair, and then immediately leaves the room.

Tracey's family cries when Michael calls and tells them the news, or at least he assumes so, because there is quite a ruckus on the other line as Michael and Tracey's younger sister Laurel offer each other condolences and try to hammer out some details on what to do next. It's difficult, not just on an emotional level, because there appears to be both a barking seal and a drowning cat on Laurel's end of the phone, or something doing very good impressions of both those things. Eventually, Michael hangs up with a hurried goodbye, because he still has other people to call and notify, and it sounds like Laurel is hoping to get every single little detail worked out in one singular phonemail. Which is almost unbelievably ridiculous, just from a logistical standpoint, but her sister has just died, and so Michael can forgive this particular lapse in judgment.

 

* * *

 

Everyone gathered in his mother's apartment goes exactly how it should be expected. In an attempt to be nurturing, Lucille had tried to offer both Michael and his son a bottle, which they both refused because they were both able to actually chew food at this point in their lives. Tracey's family arrives, and Tracey's father, upon seeing George Michael, drops to his knees to wrap his arms around his grandson while wailing hysterically. It was awkward, because George Michael was actually quite tall for his age, and Tracey's father was a bit short, and there was absolutely no need to him to shorten himself. Things escalate when George Michael decides to flee into the closest room, motivated both by discomfort at having so much family under roof and a need to grieve privately. Unfortunately, the room he flees to is Buster's room, and Buster doesn't take kindly to being shut out of his room. Mostly because that means he now needs to speak to people, at least four of whom are deeply grieving, and that would make for awkward conversation. And Buster doesn't like awkward conversations.

So, without asking his mother's permission, Buster attempts to use the cornballer for the first time, hoping to lure George Michael out of his room. Michael, who is busy alternating his attention between funeral planning with Laurel, attempting to coax his son into the public, and figuring out everyone's sleeping arrangement, doesn't notice any of this. If he had, he would have told Buster that George Michael is not an animal and therefore cannot be driven away from or towards anything with a trail of food. Lucille and George Sr. don't notice Buster's antics either, because Lucille has decided to get day drunk, and George Sr. is attempting to negotiate whether or not there's still some form of a dowry that can be paid by Tracey's family to his own (there isn't, and Michael now has to smooth over any feathers his father may have ruffled with that conversation). Lindsay and Gob don't notice, because they are arguing on who should be a pallbearer at Tracey's funeral. Lindsay wants Gob to do it, because she doesn't want to, and Gob wants Lindsay to do it, because he doesn't want to. Neither of them has any idea what the word pallbearer means, but they assume that it's something neither of them wants to do. And Maeby doesn't notice, because she's actually managed to sneak into Buster's room and talk to George Michael, mostly by telling him outrageous stories about her life, nearly all of which are false.

Ironically, Tobias is the only one who notices that Buster is using the cornballer, if only because Buster doesn't know how to use it that well, and has burned both his forearm and a roll of paper towels Luz uses for cleaning. Unfortunately, he burns the paper towels just as Tobias enters to see why Buster was screaming, and so Buster throws the burning paper towels, which have the potential to start a rather impressive fire, at Tobias, and away from him. They land on Tobias's pants, which then begin to smolder as well. This compels Tobias to yell "Buster you've ignited a fire in my loins!", which of course sends Lindsay running into the kitchen. She and Buster, who by this point is both in pain and inching closer and closer to a panic attack of sorts, attempt to put out Tobias, only to fail miserably because neither can find any water to put a fire out with, only their mother's apparently endless store of liquor. This is, of course, all happening at the exact moment Uncle Oscar arrives, to both pay his respects to Michael, apologize for the mishap, and check in on the state of his brother's marriage to Lucille. He then comes running into the kitchen, where Buster has curled up into a ball as Lindsay continues to try and extinguish her husband, which is at the same time as Michael runs in with a wet towel from the bathroom to throw on Tobias, and then tackle him to the ground and get him to roll like he should have been taught in grade school. Oscar's contribution is to cradle Buster and mumble some nonsensical mumbo jumbo, all while the rest of the family, including George Michael, who has been coaxed out of the room by the ruckus, to gather outside the kitchen and peer in to wonder what's happening.

Eventually, Tobias is put out, and is relatively uninjured by the whole ordeal. Buster has now fallen asleep in Oscar's arms, Lindsay looks winded from the physical exertion of running around the kitchen, and the cornballer is smoldering somewhat worryingly. Michael throws down the slightly charred, still damp towel he used to save Tobias, and announces that he will be sleeping on the balcony from now until the guests leave. The tone he uses leaves no room for suggestion, although Gob does later ask him if it's OK if he practices a possible illusion he might perform at Tracey's funeral out there. Michael immediately shoots down the idea, because Gob is not going to set Tracey's hair on fire in death as well as life.

 

* * *

 

The night before the funeral is completely wiped from Michael's memory. He has absolutely no recollection of it, and the last image in his brain before he wakes up at around four in the morning to get ready is him staring contemplatively at the bottle of vodka his father had recently given him. He wakes up with a slight headache, and a bad back from sleeping on the balcony all week, but doesn't feel necessarily hungover, so either he's learning to hold his liquor better, or he simply didn't drink. Michael would like to think it's the latter, but deep down, he's pretty sure it's the former. No matter how, he's happy he's managed to avoid the pitfalls of a hangover, because Tracey's funeral is agonizing. Not in the typical way it would be if he was a member of a normal family, oh no. Tracey's funeral is agonizing because Gob does attempt to have a decoy coffin float into the hole in the ground, which terrifies both George Michael and Buster when it inevitably breaks and rains plywood down on the black clad mourners. Tracey's father is still crying, crying while pointing to the ground and reminiscing about how Tracey had gotten dirty once, crying while eating a shrimp skewer and talking about a time Tracey went to Florida, probably crying and pointing out the sky and shouting that Tracey had once been on an airplane.

The rest of Tracey's family, while subdued and grieving, is relatively sane, while Michael's is anything but. Gob and Lindsay were irate during the funeral at not having been asked to be pallbearers, despite not wanting to be, and are both now sulking while complaining about the somewhat subpar quality of the shrimp skewers. Maeby, true to her chaotic form, has managed to break something expensive that doesn't belong to her, but the incident made George Michael laugh for the first time in many months, so no one has the heart to begrudge her for it. The rest of the family, Michael and Buster excluded, had begun sneaking vodka about halfway through Laurel's eulogy, and are now at the stage of drunkenness where their painstaking attempts to appear sober are blatantly obvious to anyone who isn't intoxicated. Buster, meanwhile, has somehow found himself engaging in conversation with the director of the funeral home, a white haired and rail thin man who gives Michael the creeps. But none of this is as irritating as Tobias, who attempts to give him some form of grief counseling right during the reception, which does not go over well because Michael doesn't want or need grief counseling when his wife had already been in a coma for months before she finally died. 

It all feels too much, too claustrophobic, with his messy family and his brokenhearted son and Luz, of all people, giving him a look as though he's a wounded puppy. Ordinarily, Bluth family antics make him laugh as well as want to tear his hair out, but all Michael does now is rush out onto the balcony, where his air mattress nearly makes him trip. And Michael refuses to add to the insanity by flying off the balcony and onto the ground below due to a stray blanket. It has begun to drizzle, and the droplets on Michael's face bring back one memory of the night before. It's vague, but at some point during his forgotten drinking he apparently began to cry. Because that's what Michael remembers as he stands on the balcony, he remembers the damp on his face and the ache in his throat and thinking that he didn't care that Tracey had been in a coma for a while, didn't care that he needed to be strong for George Michael, didn't care that his entire family was hanging on a delicate string and he was still needing to hold them together even as he was spiraling. At some moment, while drinking and crying and missing his wife so much he wanted to die himself from the pain of it, the only crystal clear moment he remembers, Michael just wanted to give himself a moment to fall apart and grieve at the entire unfair sequence of events that had led to him sleeping on a balcony and dealing with insane in laws while navigating his new status as a widower. 

He could be out here for hours, ruminating and feeling himself on the brink of tears again, before Lucille's yelping brings him back to reality. Buster has apparently found Oscar's pot brownies, and has no doubt fallen asleep, having the typical Bluth reaction of extreme fatigue when confronted with marijuana. Lucille is, of course, confusing this for death, and is now demanding that George Sr., in her own words, "shank" his brother, while the rest of the family gathers around the scene, either marveling at the mess or offering unsolicited advice no one will follow. Incredibly, Michael finds himself smiling just the tiniest bit before he heads back inside to return to his place as the family glue. Because someone has to be, and no one else in this family is remotely capable of even attempting to fill that role. Michael doesn't mind. 


End file.
